The shooting in Uvalde is still fresh in our minds and in our hearts. The pain is all too real.

Unfortunately, the search for answers doesn’t wait. We need to know what all happened, what transpired before the tragedy unfolded, all in some vain hope we may be able to learn enough to stop the next one from happening.

The killer’s mother, however, seems intent on defending her son.

Adriana Reyes said she was “surprised” to find out that her 18-year-old son had gone on a rampage that killed 21 people on Tuesday in Texas in an exclusive interview with the Daily Mail.

“My son wasn’t a violent person. I’m surprised by what he did,” she told the British tabloid. “I pray for those families. I’m praying for all of those innocent children, yes I am. They [the children] had no part in this.”

I’m just going to say that people who aren’t violent don’t try to kill their grandmothers, then go into a school and gun down 20 people.

I mean, I know plenty of violent people who wouldn’t do such a thing, so it kind of strains credibility to ask me to accept that someone who wasn’t violent would.

Of course, Reyes’s claims kind of fly straight in the face of the evidence from before he entered a Uvalde elementary school.

In an interview with NBC, the mother’s boyfriend, Juan Alvarez, said that [the killer] went to live with his grandmother after a fight with his mom over Wi-Fi. He said the relationship between [the killer] and his mother was tumultuous and that the two often fought. Neighbors talking to El País said Reyes “was going through bad times,” but Reyes did not address these claims.

One of [the killer’s] high school classmates, Nadia Reyes, told the Washington Post that [he] posted a story on Instagram a couple of months ago showing him screaming at his mother and calling her a “b****.”

Adriana Reyes said reported rumors that the two had a strained or toxic relation were false, and that the two had a “good relationship.”

“I had a good relationship with him. He kept to himself; he didn’t have many friends,” she said.

It was so good, in fact, that the killer lived with his grandmother, a fact Reyes didn’t address.

Maybe it’s just me, but it seems pretty clear that Reyes is far from mother of the year material. She also seems like the kind of person who will defend her child no matter what, no matter how bad the relationship is, because she doesn’t want anyone to think she failed as a parent.

Well, she failed.

It also seems that the killer’s father wasn’t in the picture to some degree, which is a recurring theme with mass shooters. It’s not universal by any stretch, but it shows up in far more than you would expect if it’s not a potential factor.

It’s something we should at least consider as a potential point of trying to prevent future attacks. Unfortunately, there are some who will resist any such efforts. Ironically, they’re the same who will accuse us of not wanting to address mass shootings like Uvalde.